V. I. Lenin

Fear Of The Collapse Of Tile OldAnd The Fight For Tile New

Delivered:24-27 December,
    1917First Published:January 22, 1929 inPravdaNo. 18Source:Lenin’sCollected Works,
    Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 26, 1972, pp. 400-403Translated:Yuri Sdobnikov and George Hanna,
    Edited by George HannaTranscription/HTML Markup:Charles Farrell and
    David WaltersOnline Version:Lenin Internet ArchiveNovember, 2000

The capitalists and their supporters, witting and unwitting,
    are thinking, saying and writing: “The Bolsheviks have now been in     power for two months, but instead of a socialist paradise we find the hell     of chaos, civil war and even greater dislocation.”

We reply: the Bolsheviks have been in power for only two months, but a     tremendous step towards socialism has already been made. This is not     evident only to those who do not wish to see or are unable to analyse the     chain of historical events. They refuse to see that in a matter of weeks     the undemocratic institutions in the army, the countryside and industry     have been almost completely destroyed. There is no other way—there     can be no other way—to socialism save through such destruction. They     refuse to see that in a few weeks, the lying imperialist foreign policy,     which dragged out the war and covered up plunder and seizure through secret     treaties, has been replaced by a truly revolutionary-democratic policy     working for a really democratic peace, a policy which has already produced     such a great practical success as the armistice and has increased the     propaganda power of our revolution a hundredfold. They refuse to see that     workers’ control and the nationalisation of the banks are being put     into practice, and these are the first steps towards socialism.

Those tyrannised by capitalist routine, shocked by the thundering crash     of the old world, and the blast, rumble, and “chaos” (apparent     chaos) as the age-old structures of tsarism and the bourgeoisie break up     and cave in cannot see the historical prospects; nor can those who are     scared by the class struggle at its highest pitch when it turns into civil     war, the only war that is legitimate, just and sacred—not in the     clerical but in the human sense—the sacred war of the oppressed to     overthrow the oppressors and liberate the working people from all     oppression. Actually all these tyrannised, shocked and scared bourgeois,     petty bourgeois and

“those in the service of the bourgeoisie” are frequently     guided, without realising it, by that old, absurd, sentimental and vulgar     intellectualist idea of “introducing socialism”, which they have     acquired from hearsay and scraps of socialist theory, repeating the     distortions of this theory produced by ignoramuses and half-scholars, and     attributing to us Marxists the idea, and even the plan, to     “introduce” socialism.

To us Marxists these notions, to say nothing of the plans, are alien. We     have always known, said and emphasised that socialism cannot be     “introduced”, that it takes shape in the course of the most     intense, the most acute class struggle—which reaches heights of     frenzy and desperation—. and civil war; we have always said that a     long period of “birth-pangs” lies between capitalism and     socialism; that violence is always the midwife of the old society; that a     special state (that is, a special system of organised coercion of a     definite class) corresponds to the transitional period between the     bourgeois and the socialist society, namely, the dictatorship of the     proletariat. What dictatorship implies and means is a state of simmering     war, a state of military measures of struggle against the enemies of the     proletarian power. The Commune was a dictatorship of the proletariat, and     Marx and Engels reproached it for what they considered to be one of the     causes of its downfall, namely, that the Commune had not used its armed     force withsufficientvigour to suppress the resistance of the     exploiters.150

These intellectualist howls about the suppression of capitalist     resistance are actually nothing but an echo of the old     “conciliation”, to put it in a “genteel” manner.     Putting it with proletarian bluntness, this means: continued kowtowing to     the money-bags is what lies behind the howls against the present     working-class coercion now being applied (unfortunately, with insufficient     pressure or vigour) against the bourgeoisie, the saboteurs and     counter-revolutionaries. The kind Pesbekbonov, one of the conciliating     ministers, proclaimed in June 1917: “The resistance of the capitalists     has been broken.’ This kind soul had no inkling of the fact that their     resistance must really bebroken,and itwillbe broken,     and that the scientific name for this breaking-up operation is dictatorship     of the proletariat; that an entire historical period is marked by the     suppression of capitalist resistance, and, consequently, by systematic     application ofcoercionto an entire class (the bourgeoisie) and     its accomplices.

The grasping, malicious, frenzied filthy avidity of the money-bags, the     cowed servility of their hangers-on is the true social source of the     present wail raised by the spineless intellectuals—from those ofRechto those ofNovaya Zhizn— against violence on     the part of the proletariat and the revolutionary peasants. Such is the     objective meaning of their howls, their pathetic speeches, their clownish     cries of “freedom” (freedom for the capitalists to oppress the     people), etc. They would be “prepared” to recognise socialism, if     mankind could Jump straight into it in one spectacular leap, without any of     the friction, the struggles, the exploiters’ gnashing of teeth, or     their diverse attempts to preserve the old order, or smuggle it back     through the window, without the revolutionary proletariat responding to     each attempt in a violent manner. These spineless hangers-on of the     bourgeoisie with intellectualist pretensions are quite “prepared”     to wade into the water provided they do not get their feet wet.

The drooping intellectuals are terrified when the bourgeoisie and the     civil servants, employees, doctors, engineers, etc., who have grown     accustomed to serving the bourgeoisie, go to extremes in their resistance.     They tremble and utter even shriller cries about the need for a return to     “conciliation”. Like all true friends of the oppressed class, we     can only derive satisfaction from the exploiters’ extreme measures of     resistance, because we do not expect the proletariat to mature for power in     an atmosphere of cajoling and persuasion, in a school of mealy sermons or     didactic declamations, but in the school of life and struggle. To become     the ruling class and defeat the bourgeoisie for good the proletariat must     beschooled,because the skill this implies does not come     ready-made. The proletariat must do its learning in the struggle, and     stubborn, desperate struggle in earnest is the only meal teacher. The     greater the extremes of the exploiters’ resistance, the more     vigorously, firmly, ruthlessly and successfully will they be suppressed by     the exploited. The more varied the exploiters’ attempts to uphold the     old, the sooner will the proletariat learn to ferret out its enemies from     their last nook and corner, to pull up the roots of their domination, and     cut the very ground which could (and had to) breed wage-slavery, mass     poverty and the profiteering and effrontery of the money-bags.

The strength of the proletariat and the peasantry allied to it grows     with the resistance of the bourgeoisie and its retainers. As their enemies,     the exploiters, step up their resistance, the exploited mature and gain in     strength; they grow and learn and they cast out the “old Adam” of     wage-slavery. Victory will be on the side of the exploited, for on their     side is life, numerical strength, the strength of the mass, the strength of     the inexhaustible sources of all that is selfless, dedicated and honest,     all that is surging forward and awakening to the building of the new, all     the vast reserves of energy and talent latent in the so-called “common     people”, the workers and peasants. Victory will be theirs.